A document management system has been known which displays multiple input/output devices (document input/output apparatuses), such as a scanner and a printer, which can be connected on a network in a window of the document management system as indexes such as icons. In the document management system, it is possible to perform input/output processing of a document registered with a database of the system by clicking a displayed icon. As a prior art technique of this invention, there is a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-202607, for example.
In the prior-art document management system as described above, however, determination can be made only about whether or not the multiple document input/output apparatuses are connected on the network or whether or not they can send/receive data. That is, in the prior-art document system, even in the case of printing a print job document which has been registered with a database and for which some print settings have been made, it is not possible to determine whether or not a device can print the print job document in accordance with the print settings held by the print job document. Therefore, there is a problem that an operator is required to do troublesome works of confirming the print settings held by the print job document first, and then confirming, for each device, whether the device is capable of performing printing in accordance with the print settings.